Space Problem in a Kitchen

Back story. My wife and I moved into an apartment with an extremely small kitchen and no place with a large enough spot to put a table at which to sit and eat. After shopping forever for a table that would fit the space we had to work with, we got the idea to build a table that would no only serve the purpose of being a place to eat, but would also give us more counter space.

The original space

After measuring, designing and buying the supplies, I started cutting wood. I should mention that my dad's table saw (what I was using as I lack my own wood working tools) is not large enough to make some of the cuts needed, so we improvised and made most of the cuts with a skill saw with a fine tooth blade in it.

Lining up the straightedge for the skill saw cut

Straightedge clamped in place

Pile of all the cut wood

Clamping the pieces in place for the edge bevel

More clamping and weight added for a spot that we didn't have a clamp that could reach

Edge rounded over

Corner radius cut and rounded over

Painting

First coat of paint done

Installed!

In the end, it took $87 to build and install, and less than 6 hours to build. The table took four coats of paint and four coats of Miniwax Polyurethane to finish. The only thing that I would do different next time is to put a sealer coat on before I started with the paint. MDF has a lot of bleed through and it forced me to do more coats of paint that I had anticipated. Also, the portion under the window folds down to give more room for walking if it is needed, I don't have a picture of that, but I will try to snap one tonight.

Looks really nice, I've been building more than buying these days too.

What kind of paint did you use?

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Cheap no name latex paint. I knew I could get it on smooth with a foam brush and I could get the desired sheen from the poly. If this was going to be in a place that we plan on being in long term, I would have done something different for the paint. The most important thing is doing a good job of sanding in between layers.

Gotta admit I was expecting to see that you had a tiny black hole in your kitchen. Wasn't thinking that it was THIS kind of space problem. Way to go dude. Way to man up and solve problems with powertools. Cheers!

Gotta admit I was expecting to see that you had a tiny black hole in your kitchen. Wasn't thinking that it was THIS kind of space problem. Way to go dude. Way to man up and solve problems with powertools. Cheers!

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All problems can be solved with power tools, and if you have one that can't be, you need different power tools.

I have a thread about it in the Luther's corner, but I haven't made much progress on in it in a year.

Thanks for all the comments, I had a lot of fun building it. I have always wanted to build a dinning room table, I just never figured that I would get to do it. I highly recommend working with MDF for anything that you build that is getting painted. It is extremely easy to work with, cheap, and looks great.

I highly recommend working with MDF for anything that you build that is getting painted. It is extremely easy to work with, cheap, and looks great.

lowsound

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Agreed. I will only add that in working with this material, much like any other, use adequate ventilation and wear a mask, doubly so becuase these MDF boards contain formaldehyde and you don't wanna breathe that.

I started mine in grade 12, which would be 5 years ago. I have everything I need for it, just no time to work on it. good thing the table only took a fees weeks of working on it an hour here and there.